After a Fashion
Your Style Avatar doesn't care what you wear in your own backyard; just don't stink up our Conference with it
By Stephen MacMillan Moser, Fri., March 19, 2010
THE RANT Again, the invasion of the ill-dressed. And the goddam navy blue hoodie. Year after year after year; SXSW after SXSW after SXSW. Where do they come from? Seattle? And why do they all look like they are wearing a uniform? A uniform that's supposed to say you're alternative? How alternative is to look just like every other alternative person out there? Their styling and presentation scream, "I'm too cool to care about looks." My response? "Obviously." I can't imagine what the process is by which they get dressed in the morning and leave the house. Leave the house is the key phrase here. I don't care what someone wears in the privacy of their own home. I mean, hell, sometimes I don't even put on earrings when I'm alone. But I guess desperate times call for desperate measures, right? Now I too am sitting around in a hoodie (albeit a black one) with glasses on hunched over my laptop, looking just like ... well, you know. Quite a switch, no? Two years ago I was Paris Hilton dancing on tabletops around the world. Then last year, I was Britney Spears shaving her head in a strip-mall. And now this year? Dull as dishwater, thank God.
MUSIC AWARDS SCOOP Maybe the Chronicle doesn't realize what a hot location their Manchaca office is, but the phone and computer lines here have been burning up with Austin Music Awards gossip, especially the guest presenters. Besides Raul Malo of the Mavericks and Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads, Friday Night Lights star Dana Wheeler-Nicholson and U2 DJ/Dublin gadabout B.P. Fallon will be on hand. Should I mention that my sister was also on the phone to Susan Cowsill and Jerry Harrison, also of Talking Heads? Okay, then I won't. For those of you who know that KGSR presents the check from the sales of the KGSR Broadcasts CD to SIMS annually at the Awards, this year the show will also be the stage for the presentation of the Cindi Lazzari Artist Advocacy Award, named for the beloved late entertainment attorney. One big change to the Music Awards happens away from the spotlight. Bo Salon's award-winning Brandi Cowley is overseeing the hairstyling for the AMA crew this year (now that our beloved Pink Salon is closed), with Felicity Fromholz heading up the makeup team and Tony Sales and Midi Soliz working wardrobe. That's the stuff you don't get to see, just admire.
THE SUNNY SIDE Admittedly, I feel very Margo Channing-ish, wondering if I've created another Eve Harrington by running my friend Sunny Haralson's dispatches in my column during SXSW. She's frighteningly good. Who knew such acerbic wickedness could well up from such a reserved young woman? And I say, "Bravo!" So here's Sunny:
SUNNY SAYS Overheard, Canadian accent: "If you see a Rudy's barbecue next to a convenience store, we have to stop. The locals say it's the bomb." We do? In 1996? Which paid hotel brochure did you read that in, lady? Last night I saw the reunion show of Sixteen Deluxe, a ninja, a lot of hand-drawn anarchy symbols on leather jackets, a homeless man's butt, and enough wasted middle-aged women in age-inappropriate outfits to embarrass every teenage daughter in the country. You have probably already guessed that I was on Sixth Street. As I walked Downtown, hearing the musical cadence of "Dollar shots, ladies!" I reminisced about the Sixth Street of my youth – when the bands we liked were still together, the frat boys were polite, and the roofies were made of the good stuff that never gave you a hangover, not like they do now. Hey, visitors! Just because you are "on vacation" doesn't mean you suddenly have "magical powers." You have not been endowed with several more "lives" or "immunities." If you dart in front of our cars, we will still run you over.
